Andrew may well have found his QB, but besides the Surlys and Somas he might want to consider an old road race bike from the 1970s (or earlier, or later if with long horizontals, long stays, reasonable hta and sta) -- if you can still find them; I hear there's a run on any good bike nowadays. My first several (2 or 3; starting with the Tempo in 1996 or 1997) fixed gear bikes were repurposed old road frames and I liked them enough to order a custom RIv fixie in 1999; that is to say that the experience of these repurposed road frames was so delightful I paid for a fixed Riv Road custom.
One advantage of such old frames can be that many are made from surprisingly light tubing and thus give a very nice ride. I recall my 1973 Motobecane Grand Record, a ~1966 Bottechia with World Champion sticker but no model nomenclature, and -- other side of the range -- a very early '90s or very late '80s Tange Prestige mountain bike that with sufficiently fat 60 mm Big Apples made a wonderful fixed gear all-rounder. The Bottechia and the Motobecane had longer stays than the mountain bike, and of course had smaller diameter, if possibly thicker gauge tubing; both very flexy and very comfortable and nice -- not like my Riv fixies or, I daresay, like a QB or SO, but worthy substitutes. Oh, another that I remember fondly: An early Raleigh Technium sports tourer with long stays and reasonable angles, standard gauge tubes IIRC but made from (presumably thickwall) aluminum bonded into straight-shouldered steel "lugs" or sockets. A tank, heavy, but flexy and with the -- at the time, circa 2003 -- fat, white 23 mm Vittoria clinchers, a Cadillac. I used it to commute ~ 30 miles rt, and carried some heavy loads, also using it to pull my then-2-year-old daughter's doublewide trailer (67" gear) against headwinds on our scheduled Saturday morning outings; great fun. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgtL%2BLPDA5TFDF0M%3DSSdUSfT6s0xwUXahr_W7G92Fbzypg%40mail.gmail.com.
